This collection of poems and other literary works of Father Feeney is not a complete collection, but a large one nonetheless. It includes almost all of four of his best books: Survival Till Seventeen, Fish on Friday, In Towns and Little Towns, and You’d Better Come Quietly, as well as some of his other works. You will rarely encounter another modern Catholic poet and writer with such depth of faith and dramatic power with words as Father Leonard Feeney. Frank Sheed, of Sheed & Ward, his original publisher and a well-known Catholic writer himself, once labeled him “America’s Chesterton”. Coming from a Catholic Englishman, that is a grand compliment indeed for an American Irishman!

“The priest more than a member of any other profession, understands human nature profoundly, and when this is coupled with literary ability, wittily and tolerantly presented, the product is truly delightful.” —Commonweal “Father Feeney has… revealed the playfulness of his wit, the keenness of his observing eyes, the tenderness of his Irish heart . . . and above all the dramatic power which is his…” —America “We need more like him. His laughter is as light as his faith is deep.” —Boston Evening Transcript: under the heading “Favorite Poet”

THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW, Feb, 1944.

The Leonard Feeney Omnibus - A Collection of Prose and Verse Old and New

Most of the material in this Omnibus has been printed before. Yet the publishers have done the cause of American letters a considerable service in bringing out this collection. Certainly the years to come will see more extensive editions of Father Feeney’s works. We are fortunate in having this much now. This Omnibus, small though it is, is far more effective than little books and scattered articles in bringing us to appreciate the foremost man of letters in Catholic America.

His trained and gifted mind has caught what is best in our own life scene. The Omnibus shows us Catholic loyalty in a barber shop, the theological virtues on the Boston and Albany, apologetics on the New York, New Haven and Hartford, and God’s charity in Lynn and Paris. The things he saw are the things we all might have seen, and which we know better because he has seen them.

Father Feeney as an author we reverence and acclaim. However we are considerably less enthusiastic about his prowess as an editor. It is difficult in the extreme to pardon a man who left “The Brown Derby” out of a Leonard Feeney Omnibus.

Msgr. JOSEPH CLIFFORD FENTON

PREFACE

This book contains the things I like best of all I have written up til 1943. It does not contain the things I hope to write from now on. And so, though it is called an “omnibus,” it is not to be taken as an “obituary.” My publishers have been very kind in letting me make my own choices. A number of things have been omitted, over protest of my friends. But a poet—if such I be—must ultimately be his own critic, his own chooser. It is one of the few freedoms left a man in this merciless age. I am not, as one critic has kindly suggested, “a poet of many personalities.” I am a poet of one personality who has had many moods. I realize I could have made a much greater reputation for myself if I had written everything in one groove. But in this matter I took a cue from God the Father—who is the poet, the maker, in God—and who could have made a much greater reputation for Himself if He had made the lion and omitted the mosquito. Other than this, I offer no apologies. L. F. August 6th, 1943.

You’d Better Come Quietly The Blessed Sacrament Explained to Barbara Do Not Go to Bethlehem to Find the Obvious Dialogue With an Angel The Blessed Trinity Explained to Thomas Butler The Metaphysics of Chesterton Notes

Two Who Should Be Friends Clean Literature How You Lost Your Faith The Catholic and His Priest The Menace of Puns Notes on Names Water at Work Fortitude et Laetitia The Old Man

Survival Till Seventeen

The Voice Gentlemen With a Grudge Design for a Grecian Urn Sunday Evenings Lesson from the Little Mosquito Wing Lee, Hand Laundry Heaven in a Pond Alicia Art The Poets and the Mystics Poetry Childhood The Exile The Imagination Guy The Classics Farewell Without Tears The First Command

Poems

The Cloud Sun and Moon The Kite The Whistler The Buttercup The Ewe The Doves Tears After the Shower Four Apostrophes to Silence The Incomparable Three Soldiers The Evergreen Rabbit Snail The Moth The Rose Reflection Boundaries The Poet I Burned My Bridges Entia Multiplicanda Reveille Virgin Most Prudent After the Little Elevation Resurrection Advice to Verse-Makers In the Antiques Shop Finale Resignation at Midnight Something Within Me Song For A Listener

Verse

Metaphysics in the Marketplace After This, Our Exile Love Is a Loyalty The Way of the Cross Sister Jeremy The Dove The Bee Poor Turkey Sheep Ritual The Whale Brief Litany The Creature Feature Admiring Maura Aunt Abigail The Devil’s Man The Fairyland To an Infant The Donkey Stanzas for the Unastonishable Reflection on a Flea Coward Noel The Piano Tuner The Milkman Jeremy Nightly Outrage Mrs. Whittle A Prayer for Protestants Hair Ribbons St. Joseph’s Christmas Warning to Contemplatives The Mistress of Novices O Love Ave Verum Corpus Natum Farewell Buzz, a Book Review And Still…

A few poems...

The Rose Perfume and petal Are qualities That test love’s mettle With too much ease.

Bramble and briar Will soon discover Who is the liar And who the lover.

The Donkey I saw a donkey at a fair When sounds and songs were in the air; But he no note interpreted Of what the people sang or said.

Hitched by a halter to a rail, He twitched his ears and twirled his tail; In every lineament and line He was completely asinine.

Though I had heard in local halls Some eulogies on animals, I thought it would be utter blindness To show him any sort of kindness.

It seemed to me that God had meant To make him unintelligent, And wanted us to keep our places, I in my clothes, he in his traces.

And so I turned my mind to things Like banners, balls, balloons and rings, For which I had to pay my share And went on purpose to a fair. But down the mid-ways while I went On all the pageantry intent, I stopped, and started to remember A little stable in December,

Battered by wind and swathed in snow, Nearly two thousand years ago, When one poor creature like to this Saw Mary give her Child a kiss.

So back I sauntered to the rail, And stared at him from head to tail, And gave his cheek a little pat, And simply let it go at that.

The Way of the Cross Along the dark aisles Of a chapel dim, The little lame girl Drags her withered limb.

And all alone she searches The shadows on the walls, To find the three pictures Where Jesus falls.